With the death of its High Stakesman, Elvenstead had collapsed into chaos. The golden towers toppled. Illegal sorcery popped off at every street corner. Anime piracy had increased by fifteen percent. Neckbrace reckoned that if the death of one man could send an entire society in disarray within fifteen minutes, then it probably hadn’t been a very strong society in the first place. Fortunately, under all the chaos, nobody noticed a suspicious, cloaked group shuffling out of the now unguarded city gates. As soon as they passed through the magical barrier separating Elvenstead from the rest of Venus, the abdomen tribe threw off their hoods and cheered. They were finally free, and Neckbrace was kind of partially responsible, in a way.

‘Cool, thanks,’ said Largeintestine.

‘Yeah, sure,’ said Neckbrace.

And the two split amicably. Largeintestine and the abdomen tribe went stalking off to eat some babies or whatever they liked doing, whilst Neckbrace just flopped onto the barren, scorching ground and laughed. She had done it. She was on Venus, free, and with her own group of thralls to boot. The sky above was that beautiful, sickly bile-yellow she remembered, peppered with wisps of hydrochloric acid clouds drifting lazily about. The ground was hard and rough, with nothing but the occasional spindly tree or cannibalistic gnome to break up the monotony. The fresh air smelt of sulfur and rot. The heat was like taking a bath in boiling water, only hotter and more uncomfortable.

‘Hey, thrall,’ said Neckbrace.

‘Yeah, boss?’ Barry replied, batting away a colossal, bloated mosquito.

‘Why did I like Venus again?’

‘I dunno Boss, ya never said. I reckoned the food must’ve been bloody fantastic.’

Neckbrace laughed. ‘Oh, the food is not good.’ She climbed to her feet and took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘I wanna go back to Earth.’

Barry looked at Jim and Damo, and Jim and Damo looked at the rest of the unnamed crew. ‘You been watchin’ the news?’

‘TV’s too new for me,’ said Neckbrace. ‘Hurts to look at.’

Barry pulled out his Venus-resistant smartphone, which he had gotten from a time traveler black market, and showed Neckbrace the screen. Neckbrace grabbed it, ignoring the searing pain of future-tech, and stared wide-eyed at the display.

‘Is this a joke?’ she asked. ‘Am I on one of those ethically questionable prank shows?’

On the screen, there was a news headline. It read:

EARTH TURNS INTO VAMPIRE; GIANT HUMANOID BEEHIVE THROWS IT INTO THE SUN; “WHAT?” SAY EXPERTS

Barry gave an apologetic shrug. ‘It’s real, boss. Damo saw it with his own eyes.’

‘Yea,’ said Damo.

‘Damo’s got good eyes,’ said Jim.

Neckbrace pinched the bridge of her nose and screwed her eyes shut. ‘So…’ she growled. ‘What’s left? Mars isn’t going to let me just walk in, and Mercury’s Mercury.’

‘Pallas?’ suggested Jim.

‘What?’ laughed Neckbrace. ‘So I can spend the rest of eternity farming gorillas?’

‘You could try leaving the System,’ Barry said. ‘Just puttin’ that one on the table.’

‘Living on THE SUN is easier than leaving the Solar System.’ Neckbrace

‘Calm ya farm, mate,’ said Barry. ‘It was just an idea.’

‘I guess I could try living on the Sun,’ said Neckbrace. ‘It’d kill me, but I’m pretty okay with that right now.’

‘I don’t mean to intrude on your personal affairs…’ said a strange voice. Neckbrace jumped to her feet and looked around, but she couldn’t see anyone.

‘… But I believe we might be able to assist one another,’ the voice continued.

Neckbrace turned to where it was coming from. From an unassuming thorny bush, a wiry, bearded man arose.

‘I am the wizard who lives in this bush,’ he said, ‘and I hear—‘ The Bush Wizard paused to untangle his robe from the bush’s brambles. ‘—I hear your troubles, and sympathize as if they were my own.’

‘Are you trying to sell me something?’ Neckbrace asked.

‘Oh heavens, no!’ the Bush Wizard said. ‘I merely propose a mutually beneficial trade. Tell me, have you ever heard of Yggdrasil, the World Bush?’

‘I thought it was a tree,’ said Neckbrace.

‘Same difference,’ the Wizard quickly said. ‘My point is, one needs a connection to the Bifrost in order to travel the branches of the Bush to other realms. I can get you that connection. If you are looking for a new home, what better place than the forests of Vanaheim or the mountains of Jötunheim?'

Neckbrace pressed her lips together and thought. ‘Okay, fine. What’s the catch?’

‘I just need one teensy thing,’ the Bush Wizard said. ‘One tiny, small, little thing. Should take hardly five minutes for a vampire of your talents.’

‘What is it?’ Neckbrace asked.

‘A Philosopher’s Stone.’

Neckbrace spun on her heel and began to walk away. ‘Nope,’ she said. ‘I can deal with Venus, thank you very much.’

‘WAIT!’ the Bush Wizard shouted, hobbling after Neckbrace. ‘I know where it is! It’s nearby! You just need to punch a few elementals and it’s yours, easy as that!’

‘I’m not a big fan of this Universe,’ Neckbrace said, turning around and jabbing her finger at the Wizard’s chest. ‘But I’m not going to let an idiot like you destroy it.’

‘What’s a Philosopher’s Stone?’ Barry asked, acting as an obvious stand-in for the reader.

‘The first law of thermodynamics states that energy cannot be created or destroyed,’ Neckbrace explained. ‘But the Philosopher’s Stone CAN create energy. With the Stone, you could theoretically amplify the natural energy reserves of the Universe by an infinite degree, throwing reality out of balance and destroying everything.’

‘But I’ve seen every law of thermodynamics broken in the last bloody week,’ said Barry. ‘I reckon that planet-sized beehive alone probably messed up our fundamental understanding of the nature of reality, yeah?’

‘Shut up,’ said Neckbrace.

‘I assure you, I will not destroy the Universe!’ the Bush Wizard said. ‘I am very positively reviewed online.’

Neckbrace sighed. If the Bush Wizard did try to destroy the universe, which he almost certainly would, she could just sock him in the gut before he did. If it meant getting off Venus, she was willing to take the risk.

‘So, where is it?’ Neckbrace asked.

‘At the bottom of a bottomless pit,’ the Bush Wizard replied.

‘Sorry ma’am,’ said one of the stone elementals guarding the bottomless pit. ‘Can’t let you go any further, or ya might fall into that there bottomless pit.’

The pit was a jagged scar cut into the side of an equally jagged mountain. As the name implied, it did seem quite bottomless.

‘It’s fine,’ said Neckbrace. ‘I’m insured.’

‘Hey, my boss told me… he said to me, stone elemental, don’t let anyone fall into that pit, or I’ll fire you. I don’t wanna get fired, so I’m not gonna let you jump in the pit.’

‘Who’s your boss?’ asked Neckbrace.

The stone elemental pointed at the other stone elemental next to him. ‘He is.’

‘Yo,’ said the other stone elemental.

‘Hey, can I jump into the pit?’ Neckbrace asked.

‘Sure,’ said the other stone elemental.

‘Thanks,’ said Neckbrace.

With a running start, she leaped into the pit.

Again, the pit’s name proved to be pretty accurate, as Neckbrace was still falling ten minutes after jumping in. She couldn’t see the walls of the pit past the inky darkness, and the crack of light above had shrunk to a mere pinpoint. She was getting bored, and no matter how widely she forced her irises open, her eyes could not penetrate the blackness beneath her. Neckbrace was beginning to regret yet another decision. As she fell, the rushing air around her grew colder and colder. With the change in temperature, an overwhelming stench of rotting flesh filled her nostrils, far overpowering Venus’ natural odour. She heard sounds. Waves on a beach, metal scraping on stone, wind through trees. All noises one would not expect to hear in a bottomless pit. Then, Neckbrace reached the bottom.